Kane & Abel

Rating:
Summary: Intruiging, Exciting and thoroughly Entertaining ...
Review: The book is well written, enthrawling and very
entertaining, but beware once it is picked up
it is very difficult to put it down. The
content will keep you guessing and keep your
intelect buzzing throughout. This is surely
by far the masterpiece in Archer's collection
of books. If you haven't read it you don't
know what you are missing out on!

Rating:
Summary: The best book I have ever read...and I've read a lot
Review: All of Archer's books are great but this is absolutely unique. As soon as you start reading it, you get this terrible urge to finish it. You can't eat, sleep or work before you're in the end. So you could say it's dangerous - rest of your life just stops. The worst thing about the book is that when you've done with it, you feel like you have lost one of your friends!!

Rating:
Summary: ambitiously ambitious
Review: Truly, one of my all-time favorites. I would buy a copy for all my friends if I could afford it. Could not put the book down

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books ever..you will not put it down!!
Review: Jeffrey Archer is one of the best writers.. just when you think it can't get any better, it does. Archer is a master story teller. Kane & Able is one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: IT FELT REAL
Review: THIS BOOK WAS SO GRIPPING AND WELL WOVEN THAT I GOT LOST IN TERMS OF SPACE AND TIME AND COULDNT KEEP IT OFF MY EYES TILL THE TIME I FINISHED IT .KANE AND ABEL ,BOTH THE CHARACHTERS ARE SO BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED THAT I REALLY FELT AS IF THEY REALLY EXIST,THERE STRUGGLES, THERE LIFES,THERE LOVE, THE WAR ,THE RIVALERY ,THE DIFFERENT ERAS OF THERE LIVES FROM BIRTH TILL OLD AGE,THERE OFFSPRINGS AND THERE LIFES.ITS ALL SO EXQUISITLY WRITTEN THAT I RARELY FOUND A BOOK MATCHING THIS BOOK.ALL IN ALL A MUST READ MASTER PIECE BY ARCHER

Rating:
Summary: Good to the very Middle!
Review: After hearing such rave reviews, I had to go out and pick this up and I must say I was thoroughly entertained and anxious to see how Kane and Abel would make out in the end. But, the more I read, the more I realized that I enjoyed the account of young Kane and Abel more than I did their adult lives.

Rating:
Summary: A real page turner
Review: The story revolves around two men who are born on the same day in two different parts of the world . . . but destiny makes them each other's worst enemies. One born in poverty stricken Poland the other the son of a Bostonian millionaire. The epic story revolves around the struggle of both men to make it to the top on their own terms. The number of times these two men's paths cross, unbeknownst to them, are amazing. The characters are richly drawn. It is a real page turner and you will not want to put it down. The saving grace of finding this book "late"is that the sequel, `Prodigal Daughter', as almost as good as the first! Alas the re-tooling of `Shall We Tell the President?' as book three in the series did not fair as well. Like many of Archers books it is well worth reading again!

Rating:
Summary: strong start, weak finish
Review: the first three-quarters of the book were fantastic. the last quarter, the book seems to fall apart with predictable plot twists and never ending cliches. nevertheless, the book is a fun read.

Rating:
Summary: Initially interesting, but disappoints
Review: I had no initial expectations of the book. The great writing and plot in the first two-thirds of the book created high hopes that left me disappointed with the conclusion.

Kane and Abel's rise to success is emotional and interesting, with a series of shrewd business decisions that may please fans of The Apprentice. The characters are well-developed, and until this point they drive the plot.

However, as the book finishes, it appears as if the characters also realized they needed to wrap it up, and the pace changes quickly. A series of events, intenteded to be jarring but failing due to their predictable foreshadowing, left me unfulfilled. Another dissappointment was the portrayal of the rivalry, which was unnecessarily and impossibly fierce given the nature of the claimed offence. Without going into details, both characters overreacted to what was a standard business transaction, and clearly one without any intended malice. In fact, the characters sympathized with each other, but "deliberately" and frustratingly failed to find a common ground. I say deliberately because it seems the characters were forced into this rivalry in order to further the plot and satisfy the book's title.

This caused confusion for family members, and this reader. From this point on it seemed the characters changed their behavior to satisfy the plot, and certain cliched plot twists left me rolling my eyes.

I did enjoy the novel and it was a good companion on a long plane ride. I do not regret purchasing the book, hence the four stars, but the concluding chapters that are most fresh in my mind left me disappointed. On the bright side, it has shown a glimpse of how satisfying a good novel can be, inspiring me to seek out other gems of the past.

Rating:
Summary: Not exactly the next Steinbbeck
Review: On the same day, on opposite sides of the globe, two boys are born. William Kane is the son of a wealthy Boston banking conglomerate. "Abel" Rosnovski (who takes the name when he immigrates to the United States) is the orphaned child of a Polish peasant. William's life is shaped by wealth, political connections, and an Ivy League education. Abel's will is honed as he escapes Russian imprisonment and fights his way to the United States for a better life. When a banking deal goes awry between William's company and Abel's hotelier employer, Abel is left at the helm of one of the largest hotel chains in the country and face-to-face with his new arch-enemy, William Kane.

An appropriate book coming from an author many Brits describe as a ruthlessly meglomaniacal and corrupt politician. William's father is almost a caricature of selfish evil even while such selfishness is condoned by the book's absence of condemnation of it.

The writing itself is fairly prosaic. The shifts between William's point of view and Abel's is, at times, jarring. Though as we watch the men grow from boys and develop their respective strengths, it becomes eerily difficult to decide whom to root for in the upcoming battle that is pathetically transparent from the beginning.

Archer apparently aspired to be the next Steinbeck and while he fails, he didn't fail that badly.